Mr. Chair,
I am delivering this statement on behalf of the following participating States: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and my own country Canada.
We thank the European Union for adding this item to the agenda today.
In Istanbul in 1999, participating States committed to invite observers to elections from other participating States, ODIHR, and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and to follow up on ODIHR’s election assessment and recommendations.
In this context, we deeply regret that the authorities of Tajikistan have not accredited OSCE/ODIHR election observers in a timely manner, nor made assurances that they would do so.
This has resulted in the cancellation of the ODIHR Election Observation Mission for the upcoming parliamentary elections and has denied the people of Tajikistan an impartial and independent assessment of the elections.
As ODIHR has stated, host governments need to provide the necessary conditions for the effective and unrestricted operation of election observation missions. Prolonged uncertainty surrounding accreditation undermines the integrity of the process.
Fulfilling these necessary conditions is an integral part of meeting OSCE commitments on the invitation of observers. We regret that not all OSCE participating States have chosen to uphold their commitments in this regard.
We thank ODIHR for its efforts in preparing and deploying the Election Observation Mission to Tajikistan. We fully support ODIHR’s mandate, autonomy and their well-proven and objective election monitoring methodology.
We encourage Tajikistan to engage constructively with ODIHR on previous election recommendations, as well as on ODIHR’s support for meeting OSCE commitments to strengthen democracy and human rights, including on free, fair and genuine elections.
